What if Darwin never comes up with the theory of evolution? What if nobody else does either?
Darwin wasn't even the first to come up with natural selection. Patrick Matthew published the essential idea in 1831, almost three decades before Darwin published anything. Edward Blyth was working with similar ideas in the 1830s (Darwin acknowledged Blyth in the Origin of Species). Alfred Russel Wallace independently invented virtually he same theory.What if Darwin never comes up with the theory of evolution? What if nobody else does either?
You're spot on with this one!And of course Creationists have work harder trying to discredit a rather simple and obvious theory.
Alfred Russel Wallace is then remembered as the man who discovered natural selection.
Theres still Gregor Mendel.What if Darwin never comes up with the theory of evolution? What if nobody else does either?
It was already there. Darwin just wrote a more accessible book.What if Darwin never comes up with the theory of evolution? What if nobody else does either?
Or Gregor Mendel. Even with some outside observation on how the shape of some green pees change over time, he might come up with some theory behind it.
Given that Darwin's own grandfather had ideas about evolution it's wrong to say noone thought of it before the 19th Centuries. And other naturalists had proposed similar ideas. What happened in the 19th was greater accessibility to all the new animal and plant discoveries and strong communication of ideas. It's a bit like steam engines, Watt wasn't the first to think of them but managed to make them work reasonably well that they were much more accessible than before.Evolution was certainly "in the air" at the time, since several people independently came up with the idea in quite quick succession, but given that nobody came up with the idea before the 19th century (or if they did, they didn't manage to convince enough people to be remembered) I think claims that stopping the discovery of evolution is ASB are implausible. It would require (perhaps significant) changes to the intellectual milieu of early 19th-century Europe, but it would be doable.
As for the effects, it's hard to say without knowing just what has been changed in order to stop the idea gaining traction. But I think ideas which were more-or-less explicitly premised on evolutionary theory IOTL -- eugenics and so forth -- would be less popular, if they even arose at all.
Intresting idea that churchman would begin to think something towards evolution theory even if he doesn't go as far as Darwin did.
You're right. Various theories were being built up, one by one at that time. If you look back, you see lots of similar theories that were put forth, before Darwin.It was already there. Darwin just wrote a more accessible book.